Re: Critique of Non-Profit Society site

Karen,

I don't like this site one bit! (Nothing personal)

Lets start with frames...
        1. They're relatively inaccessible
        2. They're useless on this site, it could be done without them
        3. It looks like on of those sites "Look I can do frames too, I'm so
cool"
    Well, at least it has a noframes tag.


Lets continue with the navigation frame...
        1. The java applets as buttons really aren't needed, gifs would do the
job (some people can't view Java applets and navigation shouldn't be disabled
for those people)... If you really want mouseovers, use JavaScript.
        2. I'm no big fan of solid colors (as the background is in this case).
It looks bad, can be hard on the eyes and will eventually be very boring (the
whole design looked kind of boring to me at the first moment)
        3. It's not wise to put a whitespace into the filename. Information
links has it (Information%20Links.htm).
        4. It's not nice, not nice at all, to have an email link which pops up a
mail window without warning (contact ASO in this case). It should lead to a page
with a e-mail link (*with* the warning message) or to a page with full contact
information and a form based solution to send mails.


Lets continue with the main frame...
        1. The background image is ok (the eye and stuff). What I don't like is
that the background has large white and large grey areas... Suddenly a grey box
starts with an image in it... The grey and white areas should be the same color
(totally solid or some non-solid color with smooth edges or something).
        2. Ok, to tell the truth the background is a bit too busy and could make
reading the text harder on the eyes.
        3. The text color could be hard on the eyes.
        4. The two red dots! Couldn't tell they were links at first. I'd
recommend using descriptive text links like "a training curriculum" with the
training curriculum pointing to www.generation.net/~ocuplast/nebo.htm or
something like that.
        5. The ALT text on images should be more descriptive... It's needed for
older browsers, people browsing images off, color bling people(sometimes) and
blind people.


And yes, the overall color scheme is not very accessible nor attractive.
I'd also recommend running the site through www.cast.org/bobby (I think that was
the url). Bobby is a accessibility validator (makes some suggestions). You might
also want to check out the validator of W3C (I believe the URL was
http://validator.w3c.org). For some more info on accessibility check out
http://aware.hwg.org.


The issues I mentioned in this mail is *not* personal, these are just
suggestions to make viewing the site a better experience for the user.

Good luck, should you need any help, feel free to contact me.

Yours,
Lauri

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